A Labour chancellor called Healey grappling with the public finances amid fears of an economic collapse. Pressure from the right to slash spending, from the left to put the people before the bankers.

Politicians generally at that time were more cultured and interesting than today’s equivalents

Politicians generally at that time were more cultured and interesting than today’s equivalents

Sounds familiar? Well, actually I’m talking about 1976 not 2026 and Denis Healey, not John.  I suppose I couldn’t have picked a better day to be transported back 50 years to watch The Gang of Three, a wonderful play in which Healey, Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland ‘clash over the soul of British socialism and their own relentless ambitions’.

But while the economic situation seems more or less the same, the calibre of the politicians is sadly most definitely not.

Whether you’re Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, Reform or of any other allegiance, you can’t help feeling nostalgic when watching The Gang of Three – and not just for the background music. Nostalgia for a time when there was genuine political debate and genuine intellectuals among the political elite.

Each of the Gang of Three were compelling in their way. Roy Jenkins, the son of a coal miner – later trade union leader, who was arguably Britain’s best Chancellor of the Exchequer since the war (with ‘Woy’ at the Treasury the UK the balance of payments moved into a healthy surplus – imagine that today), but whose passion for........

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